and the works born of compassion are themselves acts of contemplation." Eckhart sees Martha as having a higher level of perfection because she knew that activity does not hinder the life of prayer and contemplation; rather what one does flows directly from one’s experience of God. Economist Henry Ergas sees this interpretation as "the uniquely Western sacralisation of hard work, thrift and aspiration". Catherine of Siena (died 1380), having spent several years in complete isolation and prayer and believing she had become the bride of Christ in a mystical marriage, had a vision that she must venture out to help the poor. Resisting this, in another vision, the Lord told her she must “walk with two feet of love,” describing the unity of prayer and action. Teresa of Avila (died 1582), the Spanish Carmelite nun, mystic and reformer, compared Martha and Mary to a castle with its many rooms as dimensions of a journey until one reaches a mystical union and spiritual marriage in the upper tower. Martha and Mary must join together to host the Lord, she wrote. She rejected a rigid hierarchy of one superior to the other. She was writing about the same time as the Council of Trent (1645-1563) marking the Catholic Church’s Counter Reformation. One of the outcomes was emphasis on the importance of work as well as faith for salvation, contrasting with the Protestant elevation of “by faith alone.” Vatican II dismantled the hierarchy once and for all by declaring that celibacy and the contemplative life no longer topped all other vocations. The German theologian Friedrich Justus Knecht gives the typical interpretation of this passage, writing: "The story of the Good Samaritan gave us an example of the love of our neighbour. In Martha and Mary we have a model of the true love of God. Both sisters loved our Divine Lord, but they showed their love in different ways. Mary was all absorbed, listening to and meditating on His words; and, carried out of herself by her love of Him, she forgot everything else. Martha, on the other hand, was taken up with active work in His service, and could only think of how she might most perfectly minister to His wants. Martha spent herself in her efforts to prepare food for our Lord, while Mary was entirely occupied in being fed by Him... Like Martha we ought to do our best to